There would be a lot of stuff I don't remember, some I actively disliked. Yeah, early Prince in a loin cloth put me off his music for years. Then one night there was Christopher Cross performing "Ride Like the Wind" and after the fog machine more or less covers the stage the band launches in, and there's no Michael McDonald. Were they actually singing? I'm enthralled by this giant guitar playing Baby Huey with a receding hairline. The song gets to the end guitar solo and for the first time you can actually really hear what he's doing. He's tearing it up and letting people know he's the real deal. Yeah, I don't think this was a lip synced recording.
It was at this moment I became more than a casual fan.
Midnight Special - Ride Like the Wind
When this dropped very late in 1979 (really, why not wait a week and release it in 1980?) it seemed to come out of nowhere. He was all over the radio, and his brand of soft rock with an edge would somehow be the catalyst for the term "Yacht Rock" which is more derogatory than complimentary. Sure, having Michael McDonald lend his dulcet tones to a couple of tracks was awesome as he was pretty hot as The Doobie Brothers were coming off a great year with 1978's Minute by Minute.
At a time when new wave and punk were the rage and desperately trying to put a stake through the heart of disco, it's kind of cool this album got made at all. In a way the album encapsulated the best of the 70s singer songwriter period and added a cherry on top. It wasn't quite the end of an era but it certainly tied it up all nice with ribbons and bows.
For me this wasn't the end of my ride with Christopher Cross. He never went away, the world shifted but he stayed where he was more or less. Not to say he didn't grow as a musician. My favourite release is still his late 1985 record Every Turn of the World, that had a harder edge, more guitars and remains one of those albums that should have jumped him back into the mainstream. It didn't. Too bad.
To a lot of people Christopher Cross (the album) was a greatest hits album on it's own. Kind like the Car's debut a few years earlier - sometimes everything just comes together. The album would capture five Grammy Awards and for decades people would think of Christopher Cross as a one album wonder. He'd be pestered every year by critics and the press when the Grammy nominations came out asking about his success and subsequent fall into oblivion. Yeah - real nice.
This really is a great album, but he had a lot more to say, sadly no one really wanted to hear it.
Comments
Post a Comment